8 of us met in the shadows of Mile End Art Pavilion - a nice flat surface if you ever want to practise riding a bike. Also, a convenient meeting point for a night of litter picking. Shout out to Dan for leading a run from the Town Hall hotel. No doubt more runners will join him in future weeks!

People arrived in dribs and drabs and were kitted out with pickers, bin bags and gloves (all kindly provided to us by Kamal of Ocean Youth Connexions). What a legend. Before we got to the task at hand, we first addressed the question we all wanted to ask each other, but hadn't until now dared to ask: What is your favourite sandwich? Answers included salf beef, cheese and pickle, and coronation chicken. Some loved cheese, others hated it. The latter were asked to leave the task immediately. Only joking, all cheese views welcome. One (John) refused to answer the question entirely, not being a fan of sandwiches (too much bread). Fair enough, though I would argue it's all about the ratio of filling to bread, which can always be increased. Sandwich discussion complete, we got to work seeking out litter in the park (well, most of us did. My contribution was helpfully instructing John to place rubbish in, surprise surprise, a bin bag).

We focused on the Art park which is sandwiched (...) between Canary Wharf and Victoria Park, sometimes venturing towards the towpath. The hour passed swiftly and we ended our clean up at the top of the big hill, the lights of the city twinkling behind us. At that point, it seemed appropriate to undertake some experimental photography, under the guidance of Gabe (teaching some of us how to use the Long Exposure button on our phones for the first time). Then commenced, what onlookers may have mistaken for interpretative dancing, attempts by Darrenand Gabe to write the GG logo with the light of their head torches. Great effort by all (and some impromptu direction by Emma . You can judge the quality of the results yourselves...

Amongst the sandwich chat, and photo shoot, we did in fact fill a few big bags with rubbish. I believe Anna and Gurprit achieved the greatest rubbish haul (results not verifiable as I was not paying that much attention). It was an enjoyable evening spent in good company.

This was our latest-in-the-evening task since we were asked to tidy up after the never-ending Cranbrook party. Task owner Des had asked us the day before for a later start, because he had to come down from Yorkshire by boat, or something. And astonishingly all of our crowd played close attention: not one turned up an hour early...

Given the later start, there was little or no hope that the Ides of March would bring a daylight start, we’re two weeks away from a full moon, and our main searchlight-bringer wasn’t with us this week. I’ve got three head torches at home, but didn’t think about charging them until it was too late. Luckily, Emma and Martin did bring headlights, and Nia proved adept at pointing Des’s one light in a useful direction

But as we picked our way around the cramped premises, we somehow managed to achieve a lot. Basically, we shovelled a great deal of earth out of planters. And later shovelled it back in. It’s been suggested that paying people to dig holes and fill them up again can boost the economy, but our sequence included a middle bit I didn't mention: we inserted compost before replacing the top level of earth. Des insisted on me jumping up and down on the compost. I had no idea what was in it, but I wasn’t keen on taking it home on my On trainers.

Elsewhere on the estate, Martin, Dan, Kevin and Gabe were displaying their artistic talents, painting a four-sided bench which encloses a tree in an open and well-lit part of Parkview. In fact it looked to me as if the very luminous green paint being applied, was lighting up the whole estate. Task completed, the Fab Four turned to use their remaining paint to brighten a wall within the yard

All we had to decide after that, was where to take the group picture. Rejecting the yard as too dark, and the steps as lit too variably, we plumped for the circle-from-above option. Sensibly, we used Emma’s phone. Any accompanying pictures where you can actually identify individuals in the gloom, were taken by her. Any which are completely blurry and verging on pointless, are mine

Not for the first time, Des had a seemingly infinite variety of tasks lined up for us at Parkview on Monday. He’d informed me there’s be digging - always a good workout, and at this task, there are even enough spades for everyone. It seemed we were merely shovelling earth from one part of the planter to another. In fact we were digging out the soil in order that a base layer of planks could be laid down, for a no-doubt very sensible agricultural reason. When the earth was shovelled back into the planter – in record time, as we all needed to go home by then – the whole thing looked much tidier, and rather pleasing to the eye

Des knew what he wanted doing, unlike the task organiser, who was still in a fragile state after noticing his phone on a station seat as his train pulled out – but I retrieved it later. Robbie had run all the way from Greenwich in the drizzle, but the distance had somehow expanded since he’d checked the map. However he made himself useful, clearing a corner which had accumulated a mixture of bamboo sticks and metal poles

Ilana and Lucinda had been planning an exciting foreign holiday, but for the time being had to be content with a gloomy, wet council estate. There were nails to be yanked - rather satisfyingly - out of wood and plaster to be applied to brick walls. Darren and Chris disappeared for some time, on some top-secret task to which the rest of us were not privy

Somehow, everyone was gathered together for the group picture, despite a unanimous rebellion against the photographer’s plans. To be fair, it was the only good picture of the whole evening, after which it was time to be cycling to Stepney, running back across the river, or tightly holding your phone on the Tube